Question about repainting a tender

I repainted a couple of American Flyer tenders back in the Seventies, though nothing since then.  First, a coat of some appropriate shade of black or gray.  Then dry transfer lettering, followed by a coat of Dullcote.  Still looks good today.

You need to remove the old lettering/logo or it will show through the new paint in low relief. You can remove the logo with various chemicals or very fine sandpaper. Scalecoat (distributed by Weaver) makes a pretty good remover for the purpose. Sometimes the chemical removers will still leave a visible raised area where the lettering was, which must be sanded off. 400 or finer wet/dry sandpaper is the way to go for that. 

Sometimes if you are just relettering a black tender, you can get away with just removing the old markings, spraying a light coat of clear (glossy for decals, matte for transfers) and then apply and clear coat the new lettering. When I try this, I usually wind up having to spray a light coat of black on the sides, but I don't have to respray the whole tender. 

I'm not sure of what detail you want.  You absolutely need to remove the printing and any trim lines and all on the loco before repainted - their texture will show through.  

Anyway, I redo tenders all the time, but in most cases the colors I repaint are black: you can check the recent posts where I bashed two Lionchief locos: I repainted both tenders.  I use rattle cans.  I sand down the lettering and any painted trim lines on the tender and prime it with Rustoleum gray auto primer, and let that harden a whole day even though the can says you can paint on top of it in one hour.  I use Rustoluem paints then on top, usually satin.   Most times, I am also redoing the loco and do both with the same paint at the same time.  Doing only a tender and trying to match an original (still unpainted) loco is difficult: you have to try different paints on something until you find a match to color and patina.

The tender (and loco) below is a rather rare exception to the "black" I mostly do.  This is a Legacy N&W J repainted in UP greyhound.  What black you see is the original Lionel paint, just masked well before starting.  I used primer - again a full day to dry - on all but the masked black, then satin grey over everything, even where the armor yellow is now.  I let that dry/harden three days.  I then masked all of what is grey now and paint the yellow next.  Before paint, I put 1/4 inch high vinyl plastic letters on the tender spelling UNION PACIFIC and the numbers on the loco, then sprayed the armor yellow.  While that paint was still moist I carefully removed the masking tape and the vinyl letters.  No clearcoat over it, just let it harden a week before handling.    

Lee that is very cool looking train

I kitbashed and relettered one, and have several to do...and will follow much of the

posted advice I read on the subject on the forum.  But now I am wondering if I need

to scratchbuild them to get the three sizes of related tenders.  A poster on here builds

great cabooses for others, but who builds tenders for others?  Walking through York

the last three days, I saw fantatic tenders I could use, all burdened with attachments

tp expensive locos I did not want.